


Ease My Mind

by makebelieveanything



Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: ASMR, Anxiety, Basically a fluffy get together, Fluff, M/M, Neil gets two boyfriends to keep him safe, Podcast, Polyamory, Therapy, and happy endings, with cuddling
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-26
Updated: 2021-01-26
Packaged: 2021-03-18 10:21:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,833
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28990626
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/makebelieveanything/pseuds/makebelieveanything
Summary: You came out of nowhereAnd you cut through all the noiseI make sense to the madnessWhen I listen to your voice--Help me leave these lonely thoughts behindWhen they pull me under,And I can feel my sanity start to unwindDarling, only you can ease my mindOR Neil finds two beautiful men to keep him safe and make him feel comfortable and loved and deal with his semi-constant anxiety and paranoia.
Relationships: Matt Boyd/Neil Josten/Andrew Minyard
Comments: 7
Kudos: 27
Collections: AFTG Mixtape Exchange 2021





	Ease My Mind

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Leloqier](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Leloqier/gifts).



> Song: Ease My Mind by Ben Platt. Lyrics are from the song.  
> Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/track/3AM6AoxPgPyXKCiCjKe1BM  
> Youtube: https://youtu.be/XuMskr3hi48.
> 
> This is for the mixtape event, gift for Leloqier! I love Ben Platt as a singer, and was happy I knew the song you chose. Hopefully this does it justice. 
> 
> As always, a huge shout out to my beautiful beta, Zan. She's an amazing beta and an amazing writer. If you don't know her check her out here: [justadreamfox](https://archiveofourown.org/users/justadreamfox)

_You came out of nowhere  
_ _And you cut through all the noise  
_ _I make sense to the madness  
_ _When I listen to your voice_

Group therapy wasn’t exactly something Neil ever thought he would willingly try. Granted, he’d attempted just about every other type of mind calming technique he could find over the years: meditation, yoga, sensory deprivation tanks, journaling, acupuncture, hypnotherapy, and at least six different therapists.

All of these had colossally failed at quieting the noise in Neil’s head, the constant prattling of his own thoughts as his ingrained paranoia and childhood trauma threatened to disrupt the semi-peaceful life he’d managed to drag together for himself. 

So here he was: group therapy. 

Day one and he already thought this was a monumental waste of time. They’d barely sat down and the leader had started them off with basic introductions (a perfunctory group activity that Neil absolutely abhorred, mind you; everyone knew who the Butcher of Baltimore’s son was anyways, introductions were unnecessary when Neil’s face was covered with infamous scars that announced his identity to the world regardless). To top it off, after the cursory round of introductions, the group had begun with a sort of storytime: whoever felt comfortable talking about their story and their current struggles could “take the floor.” It was like an AA meeting for mental health disorders. 

Neil knew his way of coping was by finding the humor in the trauma of others; he was also well aware that this coping mechanism wasn’t exactly an acceptable way to participate in group therapy. As Neil sat there listening to the pathetically uninteresting stories of the other attendees, he repeatedly reminded himself all he had to do was simply keep his damn mouth shut until the hour was over. At first Neil settled for tucking his hands into fists under his own thighs to keep them from shaking with his stifled laughter, then he bit down on his lower lip trying to contain the huffs of amusement that threatened to spill out of his mouth. 

It came to a head during the third speaker’s story. She was a waif of a girl with hair dyed a startling, unnatural shade of red, and when she timidly spoke up to tell the room that her father had disowned her after she’d dropped out of the third college in as many years, Neil’s coping mechanisms couldn’t keep in the loud snort of derision. 

What was worse, was the short, blond man next to him with biceps the size of Neil’s thighs - who’d been watching the proceedings in complete disinterest so far - turning to him with a sharp glare. Neil noticed the edges of his eyes crinkling in a manner that to most people probably made him look menacing, but to Neil it just made the moment more hilarious. 

“I would say sorry, but honestly, I’m not. I mean seriously, grow up, take some responsibility for your actions, and don’t pretend like your parents cutting you off magically gives you some sort of ‘daddy issues.’ Trust me, he’s doing you a favor. If you can’t cut it, go find a sugar daddy as a replacement and let the rest of us move on with our lives.”

Neil snapped his mouth shut, took a breath, and added before the room could erupt, “I know, I know, I’ll see myself out.” He pushed himself out of his chair, tension rippling through his shoulders and into the soles of his feet - his usual reaction to stress - accompanied by the slithering feeling to just run, run, _run_. 

Neil made it out of the door to the room they were using at the local YMCA at a measured pace, trying to decide if he should hop on a treadmill or just jog the 10 miles back to his apartment, when he heard the door slam open and closed behind him in quick succession.

“Quite a show you put on in there,” came an amused voice, and Neil turned to find his blond haired chair neighbor had joined him. 

“Clearly patience is not my strong suit,” Neil admitted ruefully. 

“Mm,” the man agreed, that same creases appearing at the corners of his eyes. Neil was sure the expression - if you could really categorize it as such - wasn’t anger this time; if he was telling the truth, he thought maybe it was enjoyment. 

“Therapy not really your thing?” the guy asked, pulling a pack of cigarettes out of his jeans and idly flipping the lid with his thumb, letting it flop up and down in an almost rhythmic motion. 

“Not really,” Neil agreed. 

“Never thought it would be for me either.” The blond shrugged, finally stopping the incessant movement of his hands. He paused, his entire body going still in a way it hadn’t been the entire time Neil’d been in his presence. It was one of those stillnesses you really only noticed as a lack of motion, as his brain finally realized that the subtle minutiae of human movement had stopped completely, like a movie frozen on a tv screen. The moment didn’t last long. 

“Have you ever tried ASMR?” the guy asked, the breath he’d been holding in his eerie stillness seeping out slowly like a reverberation of the question. 

“Yeah, most of it drives me absolutely up a wall, but there is this one guy whose podcast is about the only thing that lets me get to sleep some nights,” Neil said, pulling out his phone and opening up to the most recent episode.

_Hey there everyone, this is Matt Boyd, Matthew to my mother, Boyd to most of my friends, and Matty to the significant other I don’t currently have._

The intro to _Matt’s My Name, Don’t Wear It Out_ started over the speakers of Neil’s phone, the standard greeting washing like a wave over Neil’s anxious brain. Matt Boyd wasn’t your typical ASMR podcaster; he didn’t put out episodes of simple, odd noises that some people (who weren’t Neil) may find soothing. Mostly what he did was talk. He told stories of his life - one that hadn’t been easy in a way that even Neil could commiserate with - and he gave advice to fans, answered questions, and even bad mouthed the people who tried to anonymously hate mail him. He just happened to do it while exaggerating every word, consonant, and vowel that he spoke. 

It wasn’t just “ _this is Matt Boyd.”_

He drug out the “s”; accentuated the hum behind the “m”, letting it vibrate in his throat before pressing on; pronounced both “t”’s, as if they were there own separate sounds rather than one syllable; enunciated the “b” and “d” to the absolute breaking point between proper speech and popping his lips. (Which he did sometimes too, just not annoyingly while he spoke.)

It ended up more akin to _“_ **_TH_ ** _iss iss_ **_Mm_ ** _a_ **_T_ ** _ah-_ **_T_ ** _ah_ **_B_ ** _ooy_ **_D_ ** _.”_

Neil cut off the audio before it could get into that day’s episode, looking over at the guy whose name he thought was maybe Andrew; he’d been running through his memory trying to recall what he’d said when they’d introduced themselves, but Neil had mostly been focusing on ignoring people’s reactions to his name and definitely hadn’t been paying close attention. 

“Matt’s my name, don’t wear it out,” Andrew (Neil was going to just roll with that until he was corrected) said, nodding. “I like that one too.” 

“I’m surprised you’ve heard of it,” Neil said, his internal paranoia kicking back up again as Neil was fully aware that Matt was not your typical ASMR podcaster, and he knew for a fact none of his friends had ever heard of him before. 

“Mm, yeah, I mean he’s a pretty big name now in podcasting, even if not specifically in the ASMR circles, but mostly I followed his boxing career when he was pro, and I’ve been listening to this ever since he quit,” Andrew admitted. 

At some point in their conversation Andrew had migrated over to the refreshments table that sat available and unmonitored outside the meeting rooms, and Neil had followed. He watched now in fascination as Andrew methodically picked up two of every cookie flavor - going back to grab an extra two of the double chocolate chocolate chip - and stacked them precariously on a napkin before pouring himself some coffee with his sugar. 

Neil grabbed a water, and then one oatmeal raisin cookie after the judgemental eyebrow lift he got from Andrew, and followed him to the benches in the front of the gym. 

They sat down, Andrew’s stack of cookies between them, and the silence that settled around them was just starting to compress into an awkward thing when Neil cut through it with a sharp huff. 

Silence wasn’t really his thing either. 

“So, what about Matt’s My Name kept you interested?” Neil asked, trying desperately to drag them into a safe conversation, anything to keep his knees from bouncing - which usually happened when his thoughts started to overtake the silence around him. 

“His honesty,” Andrew answered after a brief pause. “I could empathize with a lot of what he’d been through, and I appreciated that he was willing to throw it out there for the world to see - unashamed, unapologetic, and uncensored by the pressures of society.”

“Me too,” Neil agreed vehemently. “I also like that Matt never takes any shit, no matter if it’s in hate mail, mean reviews, or live audiences, he never backs down to the people who try to tell him he’s doing it wrong.” 

“You would relate with that,” Andrew replied with a quiet huff that Neil was starting to guess was his form of laughter. 

“What can I say, I have a type,” Neil joked at his own expense. 

“Oh?” Andrew asked curiously at the same time someone behind them said, “I’m your type, huh?” 

Andrew and Neil both turned to look over their shoulders, Neil’s immediate retort dying on his lips as he realized he knew that voice. He didn’t know the tall, muscular, dark skinned, curly haired man that it belonged to, but Neil knew that voice. It was the voice that had soothed him to sleep countless times, had accompanied him on his 2 a.m. runs when he just couldn’t stay still, and had pulled him out of the depths of his own trauma induced paranoia on more than one occasion. 

“Matt Boyd,” Neil said, the name falling off his lips partially in amazement, partially in stunned shock, a reaction that admittedly didn’t happen to Neil very often. 

“Matt’s my name, don’t wear it out,” the man responded, winking at both of them, a smile blossoming like a flower on his cheeks, the edges stretched impossibly wide causing small dimples to appear at the very ends. 

Neil stared. 

“Well, fuck, you’ve knocked him speechless,” Andrew said stoically, while Neil’s brain tried desperately to restart. “I’ve known him for all of thirty minutes and I frankly didn’t think it was possible.”

“Just because you’re jealous you didn’t knock me speechless doesn’t mean you have to be snarky about it,” Neil retorted automatically, his brain apparently having no problem back talking Andrew. 

“Ah, there's the Neil I was getting to know,” Andrew answered, that telltale crinkling around his eyes appearing again, and Neil wondered if maybe that was also Andrew’s version of a smile. 

“Well, since I’ve clearly found two fans, and I love talking about myself, how about I take you two gorgeous men out for coffee?” Matt offered genially. 

“As long as it’s better than this shit,” Andrew agreed, holding up his paper cup and frowning at the undissolved sugar coagulating around the edges. 

Neil simply nodded in agreement, not trusting his mouth to work properly in front of Matt.

_Most nights, I am restless and quiet won't come  
_ _So I lay there and wait for the sun  
_ _There's a trouble that won't show its face_

It was exactly 2 a.m. when Neil woke abruptly. He didn’t move, didn’t shift, didn’t even flinch with the sudden feeling of reality, his fight or flight response still ingrained in his body after years of living on the run. Neil just breathed evenly, letting his eyes adjust to the utter darkness around him as he tried to keep from waking either of his boyfriends where they slept peacefully next to him. Luckily Andrew was on the far side of the bed against the wall, Matt in the middle (for once not curled around Neil like a koala bear), and Neil was able to slowly slide himself out of the bed. 

It had been a long time since a nightmare tore him from sleep, especially when Neil slept surrounded by his boyfriends, cocooned in the comfort and safety of their presence - but it still happened occasionally. 

Neil slipped out of the room on silent feet, making sure not even the door hinges creaked in his passing, refusing to turn lights on as he headed down the hall and into the kitchen. Once he was far enough from the bedroom that he was relatively sure the light under the door wouldn’t wake Andrew - who was by far the lightest sleeper of all of them - Neil flipped on the soft under cabinet lighting and grabbed a glass of water.

While he forced himself to sip slowly at the water instead of gulping it down like his spinning mind desperately wanted, Neil shuffled quietly through the kitchen and into the living room, aiming for his tennis shoes and a jacket to ward off the chill that was sure to have descended over the world outside at this time of night. He was just lacing up his last shoe and finishing the glass of water when he felt more than heard the solid, reassuring presence of Andrew behind him. 

Andrew didn’t say anything, he just tapped twice, lightly, at Neil’s left shoulder before heading into the living room and curling up in a ball on one side of the couch. 

It appeared Neil wasn’t the only one having a bad night. 

Neil knew he could still leave, could still go out to the dark and the cold and pound his shoes against the pavement until he couldn’t feel his feet, or his legs - until his mind finally quieted down and stopped playing the nightmare on repeat. Neil also knew that Andrew hated being alone with the darkness in his mind, so Neil pulled his shoes off, made a glass of water for each of them, and joined Andrew on the couch. 

While they sat there in silence, sipping slowly at their waters, Andrew burrowed deeper into his corner of the couch and Neil powered on the Xbox, turned to Spotify, and pulled up some of Matt’s latest episodes. They’d heard them before of course, they’d even been in the apartment while Matt was recording them, but that didn’t mean they weren’t as helpful as they’d always been in calming both of their tumultuous thoughts. 

_Hey there everyone, this is Matt Boyd, Matthew to my mother, Boyd to most of my friends, and Matty to my wonderful boyfriends._

Neil curled up against his edge of the couch and closed his eyes, waiting as Matt’s new standard intro washed through him as it always did, immediately dimming the commotion in his mind. They were only about fifteen minutes into the first episode when Neil felt the couch next to him dip with the weight of Matt sitting between them and the TV turned off. 

Neil cracked one eye open and looked over at Matt who held up one arm as an offer for Neil to curl up against his side like Andrew had on the other. Neil shifted, resting his head against Matt’s shoulder, his knees curled up against the back of the couch, relaxing under the weight of Matt’s arm as it settled over his shoulders and on top of his chest, adding to the serenity filling Neil’s body. Matt pulled the big, weighted, afghan blanket off the couch behind them and draped it over their intertwined bodies, being careful to tuck the edges securely around Andrew’s shoulders and under Neil’s cold toes. 

“This one is just for my boys,” Matt started like he always did when he talked to Neil and Andrew alone. He didn’t use his complete stage voice, but he did fall into the calming cadence that they’d found always worked to ameliorate the noise and the darkness and the anxiety that tried to tear Neil and Andrew - and sometimes Matt himself - apart in the middle of the night. 

Neil felt his body relax instinctively, the tension easing out of his shoulders, his eyes falling closed again as Matt continued:

“Darlings, I hope this story will work it’s magic and ease your minds.”

_Help me leave these lonely thoughts behind  
_ _When they pull me under,  
_ _And I can feel my sanity start to unwind  
_ _Darling, only you can ease my mind_

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Thank you everyone for reading. I thrive on kudos and comments, feel free to talk to me, or hit me up on tumblr at [makebelieveanything](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/makebelieveanything)


End file.
